In all of Marsh’s long career, she wrote only one novel with a
collaborator, and this, her third novel, is it. This is a medical
mystery, and appropriately enough her collaborator was a medical doctor
named Henry Jellett (not that you’d know that from the edition of the
book I have; I found it out on a web page some where, quite a long time
ago now, when I was looking for a complete list of Marsh’s books).

Full disclaimer: I actually read this before my trip to
Australia, and neglected to write a review before I left. Usually I
don’t let quite such a long time go by before writing about a book, but,
well, there were special circumstances.

The set up is simple: a prominent politician, the Home Secretary in fact,
suffers an attack of appendicitis just as he’s pushing for a new law that
will allow the government to pursue revolutionaries with vigor. This was
written in 1935, remember; the bomb-throwing anarchist was not forgotten,
and the Bolshevik was a real presence in England. The Secretary
collapses in the Halls of Parliament and is rushed to a hospital.
The operation is a complete success–except that he receives an overdose
and dies shortly after the operation. Who gave him the drug? It could
have been the surgeon; the Secretary had recently had a sordid affair
with the woman the surgeon loves. It could have been one of the nurses;
one of them is the woman with whom the victim had the sordid affair, and
another is a Bolshevik who laughed at his death. Was it thwarted love?
Politics? Or something else….

It’s not a bad book; none of Marsh’s books disappoint. I enjoyed it.
But it was a bit tedious, and if the excursions into Bolshevism aren’t as
absurd as the ones in A May Lay Dead, they still detract from
the picture. There’s better to come.